Difficulties and delays in construction were compounded by Atwood's failure to deliver updated drawings in a timely manner, and the design work was turned over to Henry F. Kilburn in 1874.

[2] City Hall is a large stone structure in the Gothic Revival style, built with granite quarried in Monson.

[1][2] Originally done in blackwood with gold numbers, which many onlookers found difficult to read, today the hall's large clock tower contains four faces of Belgium milk glass.

Three of these are located in the stairwells to the auditorium, including two rosettes, and a larger window with two figures- one representing Liberty, and the other a personification of the United States.

[3] During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the building served as the de facto hub of the Holyoke Street Railway, as all trolley lines converged there, with zone fares based on the distance between that location and the system's various stops.

It has been used for school graduation ceremonies, theatrical productions, dances, receptions for presidential candidates and foreign dignitaries,[10] and from 1912 until 1926 annually hosted the New York Philharmonic as well as at least one such performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

[16] Though prior to his campaign for president, then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt would lead a fundraiser for the American Red Cross in a packed hall in 1918.

The gift, costing between $1,500 and $2,000 at the time, was presented to Mayor Chapin by Mrs. Rosina A. Whiting, and was said to provide drinking water to originally be cooled in pipes by a chamber for ice beneath it.

Later accounts of P. J. Murray's, better known as The Bud, described this tunnel as located in City Hall's basement or on its grounds, leading to a series of passageways hidden behind the former bar's fireplaces.

[23] A session of the aldermen was interrupted on April 29, 1930, while several councilors, as well as city employees, successfully extinguished a fire on building's roof started by high winds blowing embers from a large blaze in the Caspar Ranger Lumber Yard.

Until a grate was put across the belfry, damage from birds remained a persistent problem, with one notable repair attempt leaving mechanics to fight off a reported 1,500 blackbirds that returned to roost during one evening in January 1982.